Israelis 'Have Long Been Trying to Provoke Iran and its Allies' - Professor

Israel's Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said that Israeli forces have struck ”nearly all Iranian infrastructure in Syria.” The news comes as US President Donald Trump has decided to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal. Sputnik spoke with Seyed Mostafa Khoshcheshm, a political analyst.

Sputnik: Israeli rockets targeted an Iranian military base hours after President Trump announced his decision to pull the US out of the nuclear deal; does this escalation of tension in the region come as a surprise to you?

Seyed Mostafa Khoshcheshm: The Israelis have long been trying to provoke Iran and its allies into a response in order to show that Iran is the antagonist in this story and Iran is trying to escalate tensions in West Asia and the Middle East and to justify a US withdrawal from the JCPOA.

Iran refrains from providing a response to these escalations and provocations. The Israelis have apparently been taken by surprise because they believe this has been Iran. I personally do not think so because Iranians use long-range missiles with high explosive power, this has been a barrage of rocket attacks and I believe this has been most probably Syria. I believe Israelis should still wait for more.

The Iranian leader has been repeating in the last several months one key sentence, and that has been that the “era of hit and run is gone”. That means the Israelis insist on escalating sanctions, the right party could show some restraint for some time and after the red lines are crossed, action will be taken.

Sputnik: Can you elaborate more on the West is trying to start a new military conflict in Syria?

Seyed Mostafa Khoshcheshm: After Iran and Russia entered the battlefield, everything changed. Terrorists that were deployed at the gates of the capital, they were pushed back and they sustained very heavy defeats. Now the future of Syria is moving along the lines that are shown by Iran and Russia. While, the Geneva talks that were started by the US, its regional and European allies ended in nowhere and nobody cares anymore for those talks.

When you have the upper hand in the battlefield, you also play the stronger role and you also have the lion’s share in the future of the political talks and the political solution to the problems.

Now that the United States and its allies have lost their role they are trying to impose new battles, small and medium sized battles, on the Syrian battlefield in order to impose themselves to this formula.

They cannot stop Iran and Russia from certain victories but they aren’t doing their best in order to block the pace and the trend of these victories and take the solution of this Syrian crisis passage, in return for the role given on them by Iran and Russia.

Sputnik: Israel has been divided over mister Trump’ decision with some experts saying that Tehran was compliant with the conditions over the agreement and there is still need for some kind of a deal. What’s your take on that?

Seyed Mostafa Khoshcheshm: Trump is driven by a number of factors. First by domestic policies, in the meantime he is driven by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, the hawkish man and also by the Saudis. The US is not loyal, at least Donald Trump as president is not loyal to any deal. He believes the US should be first and to be honest with you, the world today the UN, the UN Security Council, and other international bodies are taking no action to punish the United States.

Look at the European allies, they are being fully disrespected by the United States and they take no action to punish Donald Trump for his hostile act.

Seyed Mostafa Khoshcheshm is a political analyst, professor at Fars Media Faculty under the Applied Sciences University.

The views and opinions expressed by Seyed Mostafa Khoshcheshm are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent those of Sputnik.

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